The lectures of Bret Harte, comp. from various sources, to which is added "The piracy of Bret Harte's fables"

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PS 1829.L4

The lectures of Bret Harte.comp. from va

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The Lectures of Bret Harte

BRET HARTE AS A LECTURER

Copyright, 1909, by
Charles Meeker Kozlay

Entered at Stationer's Hall
London, England

All Rights Reserved

PREFACE.

WHILE searching for material relative to
Bret Harte 1 came across, from time
to time, fragments of the lectures of that pop-
ular American humorist and writer. These
fragments suggested to me the possibility of
bringing the complete lectures together in en-
during book form, an undertaking which had,
because of its extreme difficulty, never before
been attempted. This little book, containing
Harte 's two lectures: "The Argonauts of '49,"
and "American Humor," and in addition, the
"Reply to 'Toast to Wterature,'" is the result
of my work along this line. To the lectures
I have added an article entitled, "The Piracy
of Bret Harte's Fables" giving, as its name im-
plies, the history of the piracy of these three
little parodies on ^sop's work, and needing, I
believe, no further comment here. The Fables
themselves have been pictured, especially for
this edition, by the well-known illustrator,
Mbrle Johnson.

I have attempted to give the lectures in full,
an arduous undertaking, requiring compilation
from innumerable sources ; the newspaper ac-
counts of the lectures giving only those parts

viii PREFACE

which had most impressed the reporter. The
lectures printed are the only two that Harte
delivered; in fact, although "The Argonauts of
'49" may be remembered by some the lecture
on "American Humor" will probably be a sur-
prise to many, Harte having here ventured
from the field to which he had previously con-
fined himself.

As a lecturer, Bret Harte was no more suc-
cessful than some of our other noted American
writers who, like him, attempted this line of
work. Tall and slender, a gentleman of dis-
tinguished bearing, his first appearance was a
disappointment to many who had expected to
see a typical Californian in dress and manner.
His demeanor was quiet and his voice hardly
strong enough to fill some of the halls in which
he spoke. Harte was no orator ; he lacked
dramatic action and expression, his gestures
were few and seldom used. The truth is he
was without enthusiasm, his heart not being
in this work because it was distasteful to him.
He had been lured to the lecture platform
by the glittering offers advanced from many
quarters.

Yet his lectures, though possessing neither
the style nor elaboration of his writings, per-

PREFACE ix

fectly embody in the case of "The Argonauts
of '49," the poetry and significance of the won-
derful era portrayed. The descriptive passages
are strong and finely relieved by selections
from the inexhaustible wealth of stories and
epigrams which Harte possessed. Almost every-
where his large audiences gave unequivocal
signs of a decided appreciation and thorough
enjoyment of the lectures, and although, be-
cause of poor management, the lectures in some
cases were a financial disappointment, they
were none the less well received and worthy
of preservation.

C. M. K.

CONTENTS

Lectures :

The Argonauts of '49 1

American Humor . . .19

Reply to "Toast to Literature" .... 31

Fables :
The Fox and the Grapes .... 36

The Fox and the Stork 38

The Wolf and the Lamb 40

The Piracy of Bret Harte's Fables . . .45

ILLUSTRATIONS

Bret Harte as a Lecturer .... Frontispiece

San Francisco in 1848 4

San Francisco in 1849 8

Lecture Advertisements 20

Bret Harte— Cartoon 32

The Fox and the Grapes 37

The Fox and the Stork 39

The Wolf and the Lamb 41

The Argonauts of '49

The Argonauts of '49

California's Golden Age

Lecture by Bret Harte, delivered in the Martin Opera
House, Albany, N. Y., Dec. 3, 1872; Tremont Temple,
Boston, Mass., Dec. 13, 1872; Steinway Hall, New York,
Dec. 16, 1872; Lincoln Hall, Washington, D. C, Jan. 7,
1873; Library Hall, Pittsburg, Pa., Jan. 9, 1873 ; Ottawa
and Montreal, Canada, March, 1873; Mercantile Library
Hall, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 17, 1873; Topeka, Atchison,
Lawrence, Kansas City, Kan., October, 1873; London,
England, January, 1879, and June, 1880, and in other
places: Compiled from various sources.

I REGARD the story of the Argonauts of '49
as an episode in American life as quaint as
that of the Greek adventurers ; a kind of cru-
sade without a cross, an exodus without a
prophet. It is not a pretty story ; perhaps it is
not even instructive ; it is of a life of which
perhaps the best that can be said is that it
exists no longer.

For more than three hundred years California
was of all Christian countries the least known.
It was set down on old English maps as a very
strange locality, and in one instance was named
as an island! The history of its discovery was
wrapped in Spanish tradition. One Spanish

2 THE ARGONAUTS OF '49

discoverer reported that he found it on a voyage
from the Pacific to Lake Superior, where he
found a Yankee vessel from Boston, whose cap-
tain informed him that he had come there from
the Atlantic only a few days before.

Along the long line of centuries the old free-
booters had cruised along its shores and captured
their booty and plunder. Only quite recently
a band of gold diggers came upon a large piece
of wax in the broken ribs of a rotten ship. Cal-
ifornia heard and was at once fired with the
discovery, and in a few weeks they were search-
ing the ruins for the lost treasure of the Phillip-
pine galleon. At last they found a few cutlasses
with the British broad-arrow on their blades.
These only showed that the enterprising and
gallant Sir Francis Drake had been there before
them.

Do Americans ever think that they owe to the
Catholic Church and the Morman brotherhood
their rights to California ? Yet Father Junipero
Serra, ringing his bell in the heathen-wilderness
of Upper California, and Brigham Young, lead-
ing his half-famished legions to Salt Lake, were
the two great pioneers of the Argonauts of '49.

The first comes to us toiling over a Southern
plain, an old man, weak, emaciated, friendless

THE ARGONAUTS OF '49 3

and alone. He has left his muleteers and acolytes
a league behind him , and has wandered on without
scrip or wallet, bearing only a crucifix and bell.
It is a characteristic plain — one that your tourists
do not penetrate — scorched yet bleak, windswept,
blasted, baked to its very foundations, and
cracked into gaping chasms. As the pitiless sun
goes down, the old man staggers forward and
falls utterly exhausted. He lies there all night.
Towards morning he is found by some Indians —
a feeble, simple race — who in uncouth kindness
oflEer him food and drink. But before he accepts
either he rises to his knees, and there says
matins and baptizes them in the Catholic faith.
And then it occurs to him to ask them where
he is, and he finds that he has penetrated into
the unknown land. It was Padre Junipero Serra ;
and the sun rose that morning on Christian Cali-
fornia. Weighed by the usual estimate of suc-
cess his mission was a failure. The heathen
stole his provisions and massacred his acolytes.
It is said that the good fathers themselves con-
founded baptism and bondage and laid the
foundation of peonage ; but in the blood-stained
and tear-blotted chronicle of the early California
there is not a more heroic figure than this travel-

4 THE ARGONAUTS OF '49

worn, self -centered, self-denying Franciscan
friar.

All the western emigration that prior to the
gold discoveries penetrated the Oregon and Cal-
ifornia valleys and half Americanized the coast,
would have perished by the way but for the
providentially created oasis of Salt Lake City.
The halting teams of alkali-poisoned oxen, the
footsore and despairing teamsters, gathered rest
and succor from the Mormon settlement. The
British frigate that sailed into the port of Mon-
terey a day too late, saw the American flag that
had crossed the continent flying from the cross
of the Cathedral ! A day sooner and an English-
man might have been telling you this story.

Those were peaceful, pastoral days for Califor-
nia, when the Angelus bells rang out peacefully
and summoned the good people to prayers and
sleep before 9 o'clock every night. On the plains
simple rancheros led peaceful lives, wax tapers
burned in all the cities, and on the hills the
Indians roamed, dressed neatly but not expen-
sively — in mud. They were happy tranquil days.

But a political and social earthquake more
powerful than any physical convulsion ever
known shook the foundation of the land, and
in the disrupted strata the favorite treasure

THE ARGONAUTS OF '49 5

suddenly g^littered before their eyes. Then a
change, which had been strengthened by a chain
of circumstances, came upon them suddenly. It
was not the finding of a few grains of gold, but
that for years the way had been slowly opening
and the doors unlocking for the people who
were to profit by the discovery.

These "Argonauts" were a lawless, irreligious
band of men. They were given to no supersti-
tious rites, enthused by no high ambition, and,
until they saw them, skeptical even of the exist-
ance of the gold fields. Embarked in an adven-
ture, they accepted, in a kind of calm philoso-
phy, whatever it might bring.

"if there is no gold, what are you going to do
with those sluice boxes," said a newly-arrived
fortune-seeker to his friend. "They will make
first-class coffins, ' ' was the reply of a man who
had calculated all his chances. If they did not
burn their vessels behind them, they at least left
the good ship Argo to lie dismantled and idle at
the wharf. Sailors were shipped only for the
outward voyage. Nobody expected to return,
even if he anticipated failure. Even failure
would, by their expediency, be made to show a
certain amount of success. Until recently there
stood in San Francisco a house of the earlier

6 THE ARGONAUTS OF '49

period whose foundations were built entirely of
boxes containing plug tobacco. It was expensive,
but lumber for foundations was at a tremendous
premium. An Argonaut who recognized in the
boatman who pulled him ashore (and charged
him the modest sum of fifty dollars for the favor)
a brother classmate of Oxford, asked him: ' 'Were
you not senior wrangler in the class of '43?"
"Yes," said the other significantly, "but I was
also stroke oar in the regatta."

At my first breakfast in a restaurant in San
Francisco I was attended by a waiter who bore
a strong resemblance to a person I had always
admired as the model of refined good breeding.
Not wishing to wound the feelings of the waiter
— who carried a revolver — I inquired of the
proprietor of the hotel whether he was not, in
fact, a person who in the East had filled a much
higher position. The landlord confirmed the
suspicion, and added: "He's mighty handy, and
can talk elegantly to a customer as is waiting for
his cakes, and can make him forget that he is
starving." I asked him if it would be possible
to fill his place. "I am afraid not," said the
proprietor, with a tone of suspicion, and he
added, significantly, "l don't think you would
suit."

THE ARGONAUTS OF '49 "

It was wonderful adaptability, perhaps the in-
fluence of the climate, that produced in them
this element of success. Much of this adapta-
bility was due to the character of the people.
What that character was, perhaps it would not
be well for me to say; at least I should prefer to
defer criticism until I had arrived at a safe dis-
tance from the historian. In distant parts of
the country they had left families, friends, and
in some cases officers of justice, perplexed and
bewildered. There were husbands who had de-
serted their own wives, and, in some extreme
cases, the wives of others.

Nor was it possible to tell from their superficial
exterior whether they were or were not named
in this general indictment. Some of the best
men had the worst record, and some of the worst
rejoiced in a spotless Puritan pedigree, "The
boys seem to have taken a fresh deal all around, ' '
said old John Oakhurst, ' 'and there's no knowing
whether a man will turn up jack or king." It
may be said of John Oakhurst himself that he
came of a family who regarded games of chance
as sinful, and who had never believed that a man
could be successful by them. "To think," said
Mr. Oakhurst, after a game of ten minutes from
which he made $5000 — ' 'to think as folks believe
that keards is a waste of time."

8 THE ARGONAUTS OF '49

In San Francisco in those early days every-
body played. A gambler died at the table, and
three doctors who happened to be there examined
him and pronounced that the cause of death was
disease of the heart: the coroner, who was acci-
dentally present, empanelled a jury from the
other players, who returned a verdict in accord-
ance with the evidence and went on with the
game.

I would not have it inferred that there was no
respectability in morals among the people of that
time; but their character grew, and the strongest
was not always the best. Let me bring them
nearer to you and sketch for you two pictures —
one in their city by the sea and one in their little
cabins in the camps of the Sierras.

In the San Francisco of 1852 flour was worth
$50. a barrel, and a glimpse of a woman's face
was one of the comforts for which the hardy ad-
venturers sighed. The gambling saloon was the
central point of interest in the history of the
Argonauts. It was approached by no mysterious
passage or guarded entrance, and frequently
opened from the street, with every invitation of
gilding, lights and music. And yet they were
the quietest halls in San Francisco : there was no
drunkenness, no quarreling, scarcely an exulta-

THE ARGONAUTS OF '49 9

tion or disappointment. Business men who had
gambled all day in other enterprises found nothing
here to unduly excite them, and in the intervals
of music a beautiful calm pervaded the room.
People moved around noiselessly from table to
table as if fortune were nervous as well as fickle.
A cane falling upon the floor caused everyone to
look up, and a loud laugh excited indignation.
There was a Western man who, having made a
few thousands in the mines, came to San Francisco
to take a steamer home. On the night before he
was to sail he entered the Argo saloon, seated
himself at the table in sheer listlessness, staked
$20. and won. He won again. In two hours he
won a fortune. An hour later he rose from the
table a ruined man. The steamer sailed without
him. He was a simple man, knowing little of
the world, and the sudden winning and losing of
a fortune crazed him.

He went again to his work and regularly took
his seat at the table and spent the earnings he had
saved. So a year passed. If he had forgotten
a waiting wife, she had not forgotten him and
one evening she landed, with her child, upon
the pier at San Francisco, penniless and alone.
She told her stbry to John Oakhurst, who quietly
provided for her wants. Two or three evenings

10 THE ARGONAUTS OF '49

after, the Western man won some trifle, and then
gained other plays in succession and it really
seemed as thougE fortune had come again. John
Oakhurst saw his joy and said: "l will give you
three thousand dollars for your next deal." He
hesitated. "Your wife is at the door: Will you
take it? " The man accepted : but the spirit of the
gambler was strong within him and, as Mr. Oak-
hurst fully expected, he waited to see the result
of the play. Well, John Oakhurst lost, and,
with a look of gratitude the man turned, aghast,
seized the money and hurried away as if he feared
he might be enchained by the spell which bound
him.

"That was a bad spirit of your'n. Jack," said
his friend. "Yes, "said Jack, "but I got so tired
of seeing that fellow around. It was a put-up
game between the dealer and me. It is the first
time," he added, with an oath— which I think
the recording angel placed to his credit — "it is
the first time I ever played a game that was not
on the square."

The social life of that day was peculiar. The
best dressed men were gamblers, and the best
dressed ladies had no right to the title. Gentle-
men young in years had wives much their seniors
and considerably larger in their physical persons.

THE ARGONAUTS OF "49 11

and often one lady had a troop of gallants to do
escort duty of an evening. A married captain's
wife was escorted home from a ball by every
officer in the garrison, and observed that now at
length she understood the meaning of the expres-
sion, "the pleasure of your company." Surely
in the multiplicity of such attention there was
safety, and especially so when each gentleman
wore his revolver.

A wife of an old pioneer used to show a chair
with a hole through the cushion made by a gentle-
man caller who sat down in bashful confusion
and exploded his revolver.

In domestic life the highest excellence in
woman was to keep a boarding-house, and to be
the wife of an aristocratic Argonaut was to be
able to take in washing.

When a baby cried in a theatre the people cried

< < It

encore.

Such was the refined life of the Argonauts in
the city by the sea. But with a change of affairs
a corresponding change took place in morals and
manners, and people began to put locks on their
doors, and portable property was no longer left
out at night. Fine houses were built ; and
dealers were convicted of forgery and deceit.

California is a country unlike any other.

12 THE ARGONAUTS OF '49

Nature here is rude and unfinished as the life it-
self. The people seem to have come here a
thousand years too soon, and before the great
hostess was ready to receive them. Everything
is new, crude and strange. There is nothing
soft, tender or pastoral in the whole landscape.
Nature invites to Homerics rather than to Bu-
colics.

The miners in the hills lived a wilder life than
their brother Argonauts of the cities. Happily,
their wants were few and infrequent. They left
behind with regret the chimneys of their shanties,
for the simple reason that they could not carry
them away with the cabins, which were made
movable. For clothes his chief reliance was in
the meal sack, that robed his outer after it had
nourished his inner man, his track was marked
with empty oyster cans, he met the native upon
the common footing of beans.

It was often that the diversity of amendments
to the miner's clothes were a serious perplexity
to the recognition of the person wearing them.
In the earlier days, two gentlemen of respecta-
bility lost their identity entirely in the labels of
the flour sacks which had been added to their
clothing, so that one of them came to be called
"Genesee Mills" and the other "Eagle Brand."

THE ARGONAUTS OF '49 13

The miners were generous to a fault. The
"Sanitary" subscription, by which north and
south benefited alike, was started in a California
barn, "it is rough upon those poor fellows; I
am sorry for them." "How much are you
sorry?" "Four hundred dollars." The next
man gave $1000.; in half an hour donations of
$15,000. were telegraphed to Washington, and
the total subscription of California was $3,000,-
000 gold.

The miners were, above all, faithful to their
partners and loved them with a love passing
women. It was dangerous to interfere in part-
ner's quarrels. Once a stranger at a bar who
had not, so far as he knew, given offense to any
person present, suddenly found himself upon the
floor and a tall Kentuckian standing over him
with his revolver out. When the tall gentleman
was courteously asked for an explanation, he
said: "l ain't nothing against the stranger my-
self, but he said something just now against
Quakers, and I want him to understand that my
partner is a Quaker and a peaceful man."

The Argonauts were not prone to sentimental-
isms, although the}' knew what homesickness
was. When they dealt in sarcasm it was grim
and striking. I^ynch law determined that horse

14 THE ARGONAUTS OF '49

Stealing should be punished by death; but once
a jury took several minutes after retiring to con-
sider their verdict, perhaps from humanity, per-
haps because there had, in consequence of the
rigor of the law, been a great mortality among
the male population. The leader of the crowd
put his head into the jury room and said he did
not wish to hurry the gentlemen but they wanted
that room to lay out the corpse in.

From California came such, now world-wide,
slang as "dry up," "played out," "take stock"
and "passing in your cheques." A miner said of
a forcible sermon that the preacher seemed to him
' 'to have taken every trick. ' ' On the other hand,
a teamster, blamed for his intemperate language,
said : "l don't call that swearing. You should
hear Bill Jones exhort the impenitent mule."

A barman, after a night in which pistol-shots
had freely punctuated the village revelry, ap-
peared in the morning with his face bound up,
but with a very happy expression, and observed
that the bar was new, and that it was only on
the previous evening "that the boys seemed to
be getting really acquainted."

The hardly musical names given by the Argo-
nauts to places in California are fast superceding
the names left there by the Spaniards as an only
legacy.

THE ARGONAUTS OF '49 15

The ' ' Heathen Chinee' ' suffers many injuries
in California but he nevertheless persistently
attains his ends. He will chat affably to a cus-
tom-house officer from his seat on a chair, the
hollow legs of which are stuffed with smuggled
opium, and will assume the name and expression
of a brother celestial to cheat the collectors of
the poll-tax. In spite of the indignation of the
Calif ornian the Chinaman practices all their vices.

I once more refer to the Argonauts of '49. In
the rank and file there may be many known per-
sonally to some of this audience. There may be
gaps which the memory of others may supply.
There are homes all through America whose va-
cant places can never be filled. There are graves
all over California on whose nameless mounds
none shall weep. I should like to end this picture
with a flourish, but the trumpets and the
bands have gone on before and the mountains
are beginning to hide the Argonauts from our
view. They are marching to the city by the sea;
they are marching for the sail of the last Argo,
and when the last Argonaut shall have passed
in, she too will spread her white wings and slip
unnoticed through the golden gate to the haven
that opens in the distance.

American Humor

Lecture by Bret Harte, delivered in Farwell Hall,
Chicago, Ills., on December 10, 1874, and in Association
Hall, New York, January 26, 1875. Compiled from various
sources.

I AM aware that the magnitude of my title may
seem somewhat ambitious for both performer
and performance. I therefore hasten to say that I
will assume at the outset that it is doubtful if
there is any such thing as American humor as a
nationally distinct intellectual quality. I fear,
however, that I must borrow so much of that
which has of late years been recognized as a
form of national humor as to say that it "re-
minds me of a little story."

Some years ago I was riding on the box of a
California stage-coach with a friend and the
driver. As my fellow passenger was a man of
some literary attainment our conversation fell
upon some of the early English humorists. After
my friend had departed, the driver, who had
taken no part in the conversation, asked me :
"what were you talking about, sir, that made

20 AMERICAN HUMOR

you laugh so much?" I informed him that the
early English humorists had been the topic of
conversation. "Well," said the driver, "judging
by the way you laughed, I should have thought
you were talking about some funny men." It
was probable that my friend, the driver, occu-
pied the position of a good many American and
English writers who are inclined to accept mod-
ern extravagance, which is suflBciently character-
istic of our people to be called national, as the
true, genuine humor.

I will try to prove that our later American
humorists are not so much purely American as
they are modern ; that they stand in legitimate
succession to their early English brethren, and
that what is called the humor of a geographical
section, is only the form or method of to-day.
Sir Richard Steele had he been born in the
United States would have developed into a
Danbury Newsman and had Bailey been born in
I<ondon and educated at Temple Bar in the time
of Sir Richard Steele he would have described
the humorous peculiarities of London just in the
manner that that humorist did. This is an
epoch of curt speech, and magnetic telegraphs
and independent thought, and wherever these
conditions exist most powerfully humorous

'■ Wo.s-

•'°»-rv'i°™?£--,r*''"'-

BftEr u:2:i!?<^ >i:"

tECTURE. — The American Lecture Bureau
has the honor to announce that a lecture will be delivered
in Thbuont Tbicflb, on Faidav Bvbntno of this week,
Dec. 13. Bt ^ o'clock, by

BRET HARTE
Subject— " The Argonauts of Forty-Nine."
Tickcta, with reserved Beats at SO cents, may be obtained
»tthe hall on and after Tuesday morning.

Oa

*-^r7„l"-

SB*'

'Wore

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2;

"'. M. A. lecture Course

BRET HARTE !

Subject, The Argonaats of '49

Tuesday Evening, Dec, 8d

tr* IX»ra open at 7J4 o'clock

Martin Opera House
Single Ticketa, 60 Cent

MR. BRET HARTE wilf deliver his FIRST- LEC-
TURE in London (The Argonauts of '49) In AID of
the FUNDS of the VICTORIA HOSPITAI, for CHII,DRSN
(under Royal and distinguished Patronage), at Steloway-hall, on
Monday evening, 21st June, at 8 o'clock. Tickets, numbered and re-
served los, fid. and 5s; unreserved, 2s. 6d. and is. may be obtained
at Steinway-hall, i;ower Seymour-street, Portman-3quare;and of
the Secretary, at the Hospital, Queens-road, Chelsea. S. W,

AMERICAN HUMOR 21

literature will be found most embarrassed by
them. But the humorist remains intact ; he
is simply an observer. I will go further and
say that it is because the humorist is intact,
because he is old fashioned, because even in a
republican country he is the most tremendous
conservative and aristocrat — that it is because
he is all this he is an observer.

Before the birth of its characteristic humor,
American literature was even more ancient than
contemporaneous literature in England. Even
Irving tried to introduce the old fashioned style
of the Spectator in his "Salmagundi."

I am quite ready to believe that the quick
apprehension of some of my auditors will antici-
pate me with the suggestion that the Yankee
dialect and character are the earliest expression
of American humor. Unfortunately, however,
for the theory of national humor, it was not a
Yankee or American who first invented it or gave
it a place in American literature. Even as we
owe the characteristic title of Yankee to the
cheap badinage of an English officer, so we are
indebted to an Englishman for the first respect-
able figure that our Yankee cuts in American
humor. It was to Judge Haliburton, of her
Britannic Majesty's North American Colonies,

22 AMERICAN HUMOR

who first detected how much sagacity, dry humor
and poetry were hidden under the grotesque
cover of Sam Slick of Slickville, that the world
first owed the birth of true American humor.
Later on James Russell lyowell took up the work,
but, at best, he only reproduced a type of life
of a small section of the great American Union.
It is to the South and West that we really owe
the creation and expression of that humor which
is perhaps most characteristic of our lives and
habits as a people. It was in the South, and
among conditions of servitude and the habits of
an inferior race, that there sprang up a humor
and pathos as distinct, as original, as perfect and
rare as any that ever flowered under the most
beneficent circumstances of race and culture. It
is a humor whose expression took a most ephem-
eral form — oral, rather than written. It abode
with us, making us tolerant of a grievous wrong,
and it will abide with us even when the condi-
tions have passed away. It is singularly free
from satire and unkind lines. It was simplicity
itself. It touched all classes and conditions of
men. Its simple pathos was recognized by the
greatest English humorist that the world had
known, and yet it has no place in enduring
American literature. Even Topsy and Uncle

AMERICAN HUMOR 23

Tom are dead. They were too much imbued
with a political purpose to retain their place as
a humorist creation.

Yet there are a few songs that will live when
ambition's characters are dead. A few years ago
there lived and died — too obscurely I am afraid
for our reputation as critics — a young man who,
more than any other American, seemed to have
caught the characteristic quality of negro pathos
and humor. Perhaps posterity will be more
appreciative of his worth, and future generations
who think of "The Old Folks at Home" will
feel some touch of kindliness for the memory of
Stephen C. Foster.

Now, as we approach our contemporary humor-
ists, let us pause for an examination of the forces
which for the last twenty years have been shap-
ing the humorous literature of the land. The
character of these forces has entirely changed.
The character of the press is different; all its
pompous dignity and most of its acrimony are
gone. The exigencies of news have stopped the
stilted editorials, and the sagacious modern editor
is well aware of the fact that it is a much easier
and neater thing to stilleto a man with a line of
solid minion than to knock him down with a
column of leaded long primer.

24 AMERICAN HUMOR

One of the strongest points of modern journal-
ism is its humorous local sallies. A young man,
graduated perhaps from the case, writes humor-
ous items in the local column of his paper, which
are read more and are better appreciated than
all the rest of it, and the readers wonder who
the rising humorist is who has appeared among
them.

Brevity especially is the soul of California wit.
For instance, the reply of "you bet," made by a
San Francisco burglar to the "you get" of the
householder who held a cocked "six-shooter" at
his head . I might also add here the story of a no-
torious Calif ornian gambler. During the funeral
service the hearse-horses became restive and start-
ed off prematurely with the rest of the mourners in
pursuit. When the horses had been stopped and
the last sad rites were concluded, the friends of
the deceased wrote his widow a letter acquaint-
ing her with the fact that they had given her
dead husband a good send-off, and that although
the unpleasant occurrence, which they described,
somewhat marred the solemnity of the occasion,
it gave them a melancholy satisfaction to inform
her that "the corpse won." This illustrates the
humorous but irreverent style in which California
newspaper men described events of the most
serious nature.

AMERICAN HUMOR 25

If we are to take the criticisms of our English
friends, American humor has at last blossomed
on the dry stalk of our national life, and Artemus
Ward is its perfect flower. Personally, I fear
there is a want of purpose in him. He never
leads and is always on a line of popular senti-
ment or satire. The form of his spelling is purely
mechanical. He gives the half-humorist slang
of the people, the kind of expressions used in
the stage-coach, the railway carriage, the bar-
room, or the village tap. If he did not gather,
he at least gave public voice to them. He con-
tributes no single figure to American literature
but his own character of showman, and it is very
doubtful if even that figure, respectable as it is,
bears any real resemblance to any known Amer-
ican type.

The Civil War, which found him in the sum-
mit of his popularity, did not help him to any
better results. To his nature the War was only
an unpleasant and unnecessary bother. In
fact during this time his genius seems to have
left him and fallen upon Orpheus C. Kerr and
Petroleum V. Nasby, whose pictures of South-
western life are unequaled for force and fidelity.
Artemus Ward had the good-fellow humor of
the story-teller, to whom a sympathizing audi-

26 AMERICAN HUMOR

ence and an absence of any moral questioning
were essential to success. His success in Eng-
land was a surprise to even his most ardent
admirers. The personality of the man as a
lecturer had much to do with his reception in
England. He captivated average Englishmen
by his cool disregard of them, his quiet audacity,
and his complete ignoring of the traditions of
the lecture-room. He wrote to me to say that
the first night of his appearance it was a toss-up
whether he would be arrested after the lecture
or invited to dinner.

It would be hardly fair to look too closely into
the secret of his popularity in England, yet if
they were to settle the question of American
humor, perhaps it would be well if we did. It
was after the war. Englishmen were inclined to
be friendly, and their good feeling had taken the
form which their good feeling takes toward every-
thing that is not British — condescending patron-
age. Criticism was blandly waived. Ward made
many personal friends, and he was followed to
his grave in Kensal Green by some of the most
distinguished men in the country.

To-day, among our latest American humorists,
such as Josh Billings, "The Danbury Newsman"
and Opheus C. Kerr, Mark Twain stands alone

AMERICAN HUMOR 27

as the most original humorist that America has
yet produced. He alone is inimitable. Our line
of humorists, it may be remarked, is a long
one, but we cannot spare any of them yet.
We need not however lessen our admiration for
lyowell, Holmes, Irving or Curtis. I do not
think a perusal of "Innocents Abroad" would
endanger the security of the "Sketch Book."
Perhaps, after all there was a little too much
fun. I^aughter makes us doubly serious after-
ward, and we do not want to be humorists
always, turning up like a prize-fighter at each
round, still smiling.

If anything, the Americans are too prone to
laugh, even over their misfortunes: they must
not be serious no matter how grave the occasion.
I will relate a story which is a good instance
of this.

Some years ago, while riding alone through
the Sierras, I lost my way. Suddenly I came
across a dark-browed, heavily-armed, suspicious-
looking stranger, whom I would have avoided if
possible, but as that was not to be done, I ap-
proached him and asked him the road to camp.
The heavily-armed stranger guided me to the
spot, and beguiled the road with one or two very
amusing stories, one of which he had just begun

28 AMERICAN HUMOR

when the cross-road leading to the camp came
into view. My guide accompanied me in order
to finish his story, which was extremely humor-
ous in its nature, to within a short distance of
the camp, and then departed. On arriving
among my friends I was astonished to find a
sheriff's posse was on hand in search of a noted
desperado, whose description furnished by them
identified him undoubtedly with the man who
had, in order to finish his story, placed himself
within one hundred yards of his deadly enemies.
Such was the American extreme. Perhaps
our true humorist is yet to come : when he does
come he will show that a nation which laughs so
easily has still a great capacity for deep feeling,
and he will, I think, be a little more serious than
our present day humorists.

Reply to "Toast to Literature"
at the Royal Academy

On Saturday evening, May 1, 1880, to inaugurate the
exhibition which opened that day, the President and Council
of the Royal Academy gave the accustomed entertainment,
at Burlington House, to a distinguished company, including
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, His Royal High-
ness the Duke of Cambridge, and other members of the
Royal Family ; Her Majesty's Ministers, many of the ex-
Ministers, foreign Ambassadors, Members of both Houses of
Parliament, and other gentlemen of position and influence.

Sir Frederick Leighton, the President, said: "I have
now to ask you to drink to the interest of Science and Liter-
ature. *** In coupling a name with Literature I propose to
take a rather unusual course: for I shall call upon a writer
who owes us no allegiance save that of friendship to the coun-
try in which he is now a guest. [Cheers.] An English
writer, nevertheless, for English is the tongue in which he
delights the innumerable host of his readers; English is the
tongue in which he has clothed a humor, racy and delicate
at once, and has married to it a most subtle pathos — a pathos
so deep, so tender, and so penetrating that we rise from his
pages half believing that wrong is an untoward accident in
the world, and goodness the one abiding, inextinguishable
thing. [Cheers.] This company will be glad, I am confi-
dent, of the opportunity thus offered to it of welcoming in its
midst the great American humorist, Bret Harte. [Loud
cheers.]

I PRESUME I am selected to answer to
this toast as a native of a country which
reads more English books and pays less for them
than any other nation. [Laughter.] Certainly,
representing as I do a free people — who of their

32 REPLY TO "TOAST TO LITERATURE"

own accord read four volumes of Tennyson to
one of lyongfellow, [laughter] I might claim
a hearing here. [I,aughter.] But I recognize
in your kindly greeting the same welcome ex-
tended to Hosea Biglow, Hans Breitmann, Arte-
mus Ward, and Mark Twain. [Cheers.] I recog-
nize your appreciation of what is said to be
distinctive American literature — a literature that
laughs with the American skies, and is by turns
as surprising and as extravagant as the American
weather. [I^aughter.] Indeed, I am not certain
that these cyclones of American humor that cross
the Atlantic are not as providential as the Amer-
can storms that mitigate the austere monotony
of the English climate. [lyaughter.] For it has
been settled by your reviewers that American
literature is American humor, and that this
American humor is a kind of laughable impro-
priety, more or less scantily clothed in words.
It has been settled that you are a sober people,
and that nobody in America takes life seriously
— not even a highwayman — and that our litera-
ture is a reflex of our life. But I think that a
majority of this Academy are kind enough to
recognize some principles of Art underiying this
characteristic. And I consider that no higher

BRET HARTE

CARTOON BY "SPY" (LESLIE WARD) IN VANITY TAIR, 1879

REPLY TO "TOAST TO LITERATURE" 33

compliment has been paid American humor than
that the type of American drawn by your great-
est English humorist has been supplanted by
types drawn by lyowell, Artemus Ward, and
Mark Twain.

[Mr. Bret Harte concluded by thanking the
President for the toast.]

The Improved i^sop

For Intelligent Modern Children

By Bret Harte

Fable I

The Fox and the Grapes

A thirsty fox one day, in passing through a
vineyard, noticed that the grapes were hang-
ing in clusters from vines which were trained
to such a height as to be out of his reach.

"Ah," said the fox, with a supercilious
smile, "I've heard of this before. In the
twelfth century an ordinary fox of average
culture would have wasted his energy and
strength in the vain attempt to reach yonder
sour grapes. Thanks to my knowledge of vine
culture, however, I at once observe that the
great height and extent of the vine, the drain
upon the sap through the increased number of
tendr'ls and leaves must, of necessity, impov-
erish the grape, and render it unworthy the
consideration of an intelligent animal. Not
any for me thank you." With these words he
coughed slightly, and withdrew.

Moral — This fable teaches us that an intel-
ligent discretion and some botanical know-
ledge are of the greatest importance in grape
culture.

36

^j\m^

Fable II

The Fox and the Stork

A fox one day invited a stork to dinner, but
provided for the entertainment only the first
course, soup. This being in a shallow dish,
of course the fox lapped up readily, but the
stork, by means of his long bill, was unable
to gain a mouthful.

"You do not seem fond of soup," said the
fox, concealing a smile in his napkin. "Now
it is one of my greatest weaknesses."

' 'You certainly seem to project yourself out-
side of a large quantity, ' ' said the stork, rising
with some dignity, and examining his watch
with considerable empressement; ' ' but I have an
appointment at eight o'clock, which I had
forgotten. I must ask to be excused. Au revoir.
By the way, dine with me to-morrow."

The fox assented, arrived at the appointed
time, but found, as he fully expected, nothing
on the table but a single long-necked bottle,
containing olives, which the stork was com-
placently extracting by the aid of his long bill .

"Why, you do not seem to eat anything,"
said the stork, with great naivett^, when he
had finished the bottle.

"No," said the fox, significantly, " I am
waiting for the second course."

"What is that? " asked the stork, blandly.

"Stork, stuffed with olives," shrieked the
fox in a very pronounced manner, and in-
stantly dispatched him.

Moral — True hospitality obliges the host
to sacrifice himself for his guests.

38

Fable III

The Wolf and the h,amb

A wolf one day, drinking from a running
stream, observed a lamb also drinking from
the same stream at some distance from him.

' ' I have yet to learn, "said the wolf, address-
ing the lamb with dignified severity," what
right you have to muddy the stream from
which I am drinking."

"Your premises are incorrect, " replied the
lamb with bland politeness, "for if you will
take the trouble to examine the current criti-
cally you will observe that it flows from you
to me, and that any disturbance of sediment
here would be, so far as you are concerned,
entirely local."

Possibly you are right, ' ' returned the wolf,
' but, if I am not mistaken, you are the person
who, two years ago, used some influence against
me at the primaries."

"impossible," replied the lamb; "two years
ago I was not born."

"Ah! well,"added the wolf, composedly,"!
am wrong again. But it must convince every
intelligent person who has listened to this con-
versation that I am altogether insane, and
consequently not responsible for my actions."

With this remark, he at once dispatched the
lamb, and was triumphantly acquitted.

Moral — This fable teaches us how errone-
ous may be the popular impression in regard
to the distribution of alluvium and the forma-
tion of river deltas.

40

The Piracy of Bret Harte's
Fables

'T^HAT Bret Harte ever essayed to emulate
-'- the example of immortal ^sop is not
generally known, even among those who are
fairly familiar with his work. It is certain,
however, that he wrote and published at least
three fables. And, what is more, it is equally
certain that these inoffensive and not very am-
bitious ventures into a difficult literary field,
brought him an experience humorous to look
back upon, but which must have been exas-
perating at the time.

He was charged with "literary piracy." At
first glance the charge seemed not without
foundation. The humor of the situation de-
velops however, when it becomes evident that
Harte was not only innocent of flying the liter-
ary Black Flag, but was himself the victim of
piratical enterprise. The three fables were not
stolen by him but from him.

In the columns of the New York Tribune, early
in the year 1882, there appeared the following
arraignment :

46 THE PIRACY OP BRET HARTE'S FABI^ES

IS THIS A CASH OF PIRACY?

To the Editor of The Tribune:

Sir : — I notice in your paper of to-day an ar-
ticle copied from The London Echo headed, "Bret
Harte's New Book — A Collection of Fables."
Of the five, four have been stolen verbatim et litera-
tim from my volumes, "Out of the World," pub-
lished five years ago and favorably noticed in The
Tribune, if I mistake not, and the fifth has been
expanded and spoiled. Mr. Harte seems to have
gone to the length of appropriating the illustra-
tions of my friend, Mr. F. E. Church. I have
heard of wholesale literary piracies, but there is
a sweet, luscious largeness about Mr. Harte's
work which reminds one of nothing so much as
a mammoth California fruit, ripened in an Eng-
lish hothouse. Yours truly,

G. T. I^ANIGAN.

New York, Jan. 8, 1882.

The newspaper article to which Mr. I^anigan
refers was a reprint by the New York Tribune of
a book review first published in the London Echo.
The work under review was called "Bret Harte's
New Book," and the publishers neglected to
state that only a part of the book's contents
was from the pen of Bret Harte. The reviewer
said :

THE PIRACY OF BRET HARTE'S FABLES 47

"Mr. Bret Harte has gone to the author,
whom that popular lecturer, the Rev. Jackson
Wray, aptly describes as "Rare Old ^sop,"
and has produced a new book of Fables whose
chief fault is that it is so small, but though
the volume is thin the fun is not so by any
means."

After particularizing concerning certain of
the fables, not choosing, as it happened, any
of the genuine Harte products, the reviewer
continued : ' ' Some of the fables in the book
seem to have been written with an eye to
passing events. Take, for instance, the follow-
ing and read it in connection with the extra-
ordinary ' incidents of the trial of Guiteau."
Then follows "The Wolf and the I,amb,"
which was one of the fables that Harte really
did write.

Bret Harte 's state of mind upon having his
attention called to Mr. I<anigan's accusation
may be better imagined when his opinion as to
the piracy of an author's writings is more clearly
known.

In the early days of Harte 's career as an
author there was no international copyright law,
and many English publishers reaped a rich har-
vest by placing on the market the writings of

48 THE PIRACY OF BRET HARTE'S FABLES

American authors. And I may remark in pass-
ing — with shame for my fellow-countrymen, —
the pirates were not all on the other side of the
Atlantic, for not a few American publishers took
advantage of opportunities to make money in
this manner. Harte, like many other American
authors, was a sufferer from this abuse.

His attitude toward the flagrant piracy by
English publishers was shown when in 1873 he
brought suit, through his American publishers,
for an injunction to restrain the importation and
sale of pirated editions of his works. The articles
in question were published in The Overland Monthly
and other magazines. The injunction was sus-
tained, and the books then in the custom house
were not allowed to enter here.

The following characteristic letter of Mark
Twain will serve to make clearer a contemporary
author's feelings on the subject. I give the
letter in full because it contains much of
Twain's humor and has never before, so far as
I am able to learn, been published in book form.

lo the Editor of The Spectator:

Sir: — I only venture to intrude upon you be-
cause I come, in some sense, in the interest of
public morality, and this makes my mission res-

THE PIRACY OF BRET HARTE'S FABLES 49

pectable. Mr. John Camden Hotten, of I/ondon,
has, of his own individual motion, republished
several of my books in England. I do not pro-
test against this, for there is no law that could
give effect to the protest; and, besides, publishers
are not accountable to the laws of heaven and
earth in any country, as I understand it. But
my grievance is this : My books are bad enough
just as they are written, then what must they be
after Mr. John Camden. Hotten has composed
half-a-dozen chapters and added the same to
them ? I feel that all true hearts will bleed for
an author whose volumes have fallen under such
a dispensation as this. If a friend of yours, or
even if you yourself, were to write a book and
send it adrift among the people, with the gravest
apprehensions that it was not up to what it ought
to be intellectually, how would you like to have
John Camden Hotten sit down and stimulate his
powers, and drool two or three original chapters
on to the end of that book? Would not the
world seem cold and hollow to you ? Would you
not feel that you wanted to die and be at rest ?
lyittle the world knows of true suffering. And
suppose he should entitle these chapters, "Holi-
iday I<iterature," "True Stories of Chicago,"
"On Children," "Train Up a Child, and Away
He Goes," and "Vengeance," and then, on the
strength of having evolved these marvels from
his own consciousness, go and "Copyright" the
entire book, and put on the title-page a picture

50 THB PIRACY OF BRET HARTE'S FABLES

of a man with his hand in another man's pocket
and the legend "All Rights Reserved," (I only
suppose the picture ; still it would be rather a
neat thing). And, further, suppose that in the
kindness of his heart and the exuberance of his
untaught fancy, this thoroughly well-meaning
innocent should expunge the modest title which
you had given your book, and replace it with so
foul an invention as this, "Screamers and Eye-
Openers," and went and got that copyrighted,
too. And suppose that on top of all this, he
continually and persistently forgot to offer you
a single penny or even send you a copy of your
mutilated book to burn. Let us suppose all
this. Let him suppose it with strength enough,
and then he will know something about woe.
Sometimes when I read one of those additional
chapters constructed by John Camden Hotten,
I feel as if I wanted to take a broom-straw and
go and knock that man's brains out. Not in
anger, for I feel none. Oh! not in anger; but
only to see, that is all. Mere idle curiosity.
And Mr. Hotten says that one mm de plume of
mine is "Carl Byng." I hold that there is no
affliction in this world that makes a man feel so
downtrodden and abused as the giving him a
name that does not belong to him. How would
this sinful aborigine feel if I were to call him
John Camden Hottentot, and come out in the
papers and say he was entitled to it by divine
right? I do honestly believe it would throw

THE PIRACY OP BRET HARTE'S FABLES 51

him into a brain fever, if there were not an in-
superable obstacle in the way.

Yes — to come to the original subject, which is
the sorrow that is slowly but surely undermin-
ing my health — Mr. Hotten prints unrevised,
uncorrected, and in some respects, spurious
books, with my name to them as author, and
thus embitters his customers against one of the
most innocent of men. Messrs. George Rout-
ledge and Sons are the only English publishers
who pay me any copyright, and therefore if my
books are to disseminate either suffering or
crime' among the readers of our language, I
would ever so much rather they did it through
that house, and then I could contemplate the
spectacle calmly as the dividends came in.
I am sir, etc.,
Samuki, T. Clemkns ("Mark Twain") .
lyondon, September 20, 1872.

Bret Harte, though in Glasgow at the time
Mr. I^anigan's accusation was printed in the
New York Tribune, immediately made reply to
the same through the columns of that paper.
Mr. lyanigan we hope considered the answer
sufficiently full and explicit.

To the Editor of the Tribune:

Sir: — I find in the columns of The Tribune a
communication from a Mr. Lanigan claiming the

52 THE PIRACY OF BRET HARTE'S FABLES

authorship of certain fables contained in a book
published in London, bearing upon its cover the
inscription, "Fables by G. Washington ^sop"
and upon its title page, "Fables by G. Washing-
ton ^sop and Bret Harte." Three of these
fables I recognize as my own, but where and
when written I cannot now recall.

As Mr. Lanigan ha's seen fit to abuse me for
instigating the publication of the book, and
claiming its authorship, it may be necessary for
me to state that I neither authorized its publica-
tion nor knew of its existence until it was pub-
licly sold. When I read it, I wrote the publisher,
who apologized, but at the same time pointed
out the obvious fact — which seems to have es-
caped the attention of Mr. Lanigan — that he
had, neither on title page or cover, claimed the
work as wholly mine. And it is only just to
him to say he admitted a certain wrong done to
me, in so far as to voluntarily offer to consider"
any pecuniary damage I might have sustained.
That damage I am not "considering" here.
But if I have been wantonly or accidentally
used as, an advertisement for a book, which is
amusing, I do not see that it follows that I
should suffer myself to be made an advertise-
ment for Mr. Lanigan, who is certainly not.

Bret Harte.
Glasgow, Jan. 28, 1882.

Bret Harte says in this letter that he cannot
recall when and where he wrote the fables, but

THE PIRACY OF BRET HARTE'S FABLES 53

some may remember the Homoeopathic Hospital
Pair, held in the hall at 112 to 116 Lake Street,
Chicago, November 19-26, 1874, and Harte's
contribution to "The Chicago Hospital Bazaar,"
published in the interests of the Fair at that
time. It was here his three fables first ap-
peared. The reason for their not being' more
widely known, and inserted by the publishers
in his collected works, may perhaps be that,
coming through the channels in which they did,
they escaped notice. They are certainly, as a
reading will show, well worthy of preservation.